iPhone X: Hands-On With Apple's New Flagship Device

[geta]

I ordered 4 cases all clear to show off the silver iPhone X, I can tell you right now that holding the case in my hands feels perfect, now my iPhone 7 Plus just feels ridiculous, I’m so excited my iPhone has been sitting in NJ since Monday, I have friends at Fedex so I should have it before 12pm on Friday

Only now the Plus versions felt ridiculous for you?? toke you few years to understand this... since day one it was and still is a ridiculous phablet...

On other note, i'm still curious about what's the limit angle you can use with FaceID, and if i can open it while its on the table without picking it up in front of my face.

 

[kstotlani]

All these "hands-on" reviews over the last few days and not one comment about call quality; it's a phone after all....

Not many people call each other. I get so annoyed when people leave me an important message on a text rather than just calling. In fact they get more annoyed with me because I didn’t check WhatsApp for a full 30 minutes.

 

[willdude]

I have fairly small hands, and holding my non-Plus phone one-handed I can't reach the far-top corner of the screen. Needing to reach that far notch to see Control Center or Notifications will be even more impossible, and reaching down to the bottom for the other swipe gestures with be a stretch. I realize the ship has mostly sailed in terms of phones you can comfortably use one-handed, but it seems like the X is adding yet another degree of difficulty for questionable gain.

 

[johngordon]

One thing I actually quite like about the notch is the way it creates two quite distinct targets to access notifications and control centre. I'm planning on upgrading from my 5E, but the main thing I'm less keen on is the glossy glass - I much prefer more of a matte finish. And its a lot of money, but the total cost of ownership over four years works out fairly well for me.

My wife is paying £36 a month for 8GB, unlimited texts, and not sure how many minutes. With a free 32GB Sony Xperia XZ1. So over four years, that's £1728.

I'm paying £15 a month for 8GB, unlimited texts and 1000 minutes, so £1869 over four years for the 256GB iPhone X. And I can add 0.5GB or 50 minutes every 3 months.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

Not many people call each other. I get so annoyed when people leave me an important message on a text rather than just calling. In fact they get more annoyed with me because I didn’t check WhatsApp for a full 30 minutes.

I agree with you 100%, I wasn't being flippant with my post. What is the output of the iPhone X's ear-piece? What is it's frequency response? or for for that matter the frequency response of the microphone? How do these stats compare to the competition? These things matter to a phone, but hey I guess "I looked at it and it unlocked" thus achieving what every phone ever has done by unlocking is cool right?

 

[chatin]

As mentioned on Apple Byte, identical twins are able to get into each others phones! Good Apple to Brian Tong. Apple manages to keep the stable of reviewers positive by limiting access but get real about the more humorous shortcomings.

 

[jonnysods]

We wants it precious...

 

[Macintoshrumors]

Do we also get a new batch of emojis?

Have you been living under a rock? IOS11.1 gives everyone a new batch of emoijis
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As mentioned on Apple Byte, identical twins are able to get into each others phones! Good Apple to Brian Tong. Apple manages to keep the stable of reviewers positive by limiting access but get real about the more humorous shortcomings.

Well, they are identical. What did you expect was going to happen? Apple even mentioned the evil twin in their event. In the rare case of twins against the overall population it’s not that big of a deal. I’d feel more comfortable if my twin had acceess to my phone than some stranger. They can always use a passcode, problem solved.
[doublepost=1509624647][/doublepost]

I have fairly small hands, and holding my non-Plus phone one-handed I can't reach the far-top corner of the screen. Needing to reach that far notch to see Control Center or Notifications will be even more impossible, and reaching down to the bottom for the other swipe gestures with be a stretch. I realize the ship has mostly sailed in terms of phones you can comfortably use one-handed, but it seems like the X is adding yet another degree of difficulty for questionable gain.

Well doesn’t that suck. First world problems.

 

[The_Machine]

Yeah, it was the bit just before the supermarket when he started talking about the bright sunlight for me, I damn near spat my coffee out. And I do NOT like to waste coffee, not even the cheap horrible stuff you get at Starbucks.

Now, ok, fair enough I don't know how tall Nilay is. He may be a person of short stature (is that what we call midgets these days? I lose track of all of that PC arse gravy, it's forever changing ) for all I know. But were talking about a device designed to operate within 10 - 20 inches, so probably 15 being the sweet spot.

I'm 6 foot 3" and on me, where he's holding it is a lot more than 20 inches from my eyes. In direct sunlight, with a quick glance, while strutting down the street.

Really Mr Patel? That's your testing methodology for something? Put it just enough outside of it's defined operational parameters so that it fails but doesn't look too obvious. Yeah, that gives me complete faith in your impartiality, not to mention your usefulness as a product tester and opinion giver.
And before anyone makes a crack and we all know you will, I've been professionally testing pre-release products for over 20 years. It takes a little bit more, let's say for simpleness, actions grounded in reality than that particular "test" to cut it.

I mean for God's sake, I'm not expecting it to be perfect, I'm not even expecting it to be quicker or always as convenient as Touch ID. But give me a break.

You do realize that the reason you know it’s designed to work 10 to 20 inches from your face is because of Nilay and the Verge’s reporting/review right? They were the source of that quote from Apple after testing the device.

I’m glad they put Face ID through it’s paces. Nilay experienced a few issues so they did in depth testing to see what was causing the issues and wrote about their experiences. They gave Apple a chance to respond to these issues and got them to make a statement on Face ID’s optimal viewing distance. That’s what we want out of a site like Verge. Its proper journalism. They will of course follow up on it all in a proper review once they have had it for more then a day.

I much prefer that to a gushing 24 hour review that says it worked the majority of the time and doesn’t bother to inform the reader about what happened when it didn’t.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

Here we go again... a flood of iPhone X reviews and observations.
How about other news?

 

[scrapesleon]

Tomorrow is the day yay

 

[mikef07]

Good video, but nothing about that phone makes me want to upgrade. Seems like we need at least a year of app dev and hardware progress to make what this is supposed to be, be.

See I never understand this. The smart phone market is matured in pretty much what you can do. A high percentage (95%+?)of people will focus on a few different areas. Making phone calls, browsing internet, sending messages, social meda, listening to music/consuming audio/video, email, taking pictures, having access to other aspects of their lives such as airplane boarding passes/Credit card accounts, etc, and playing games.

Not sure how you could release anything ground breaking to do these things now. What I wanted is exactly what I am getting. A form factor that maximizes screen while minimizing size and the latest hardware that will keep up with app that are evolving.

Dont really care about face id as I will never put a password on and emojis I will never use. The question that should be asked is can this phone perform what you need it to do and if not what do you need it to do that it cannot currently do?

 

[convergent]

The Verge is no longer a reliable source. They’ve embarked in an all-out anti-Apple crusade, while everything Google does is golden.

The final turning point has been the Apple Watch LTE review, completely built on a single connectivity bug. Once the bug got solved, the review remained largely the same, including the 5 score. At this point it’s clear they have an agenda.

As far as the iPhone X is concerned: no other reviewer found problems in full daylight. And someone took the device for a full vacation at Disneyland.

Well that's the thing with faces.. they are all different. Perhaps it doesn't work as well with his face. There have been a lot of discussions that say FaceID is a tiny Kinect on the front of the phone. Anyone remember Kinect being called racist because it couldn't see people with dark skin? We'll find out after its used for a few weeks, but I still expect this not to go as smoothly as Apple is portraying. Hopefully I'm wrong, because that is a lot of money to spend on something if it proves to not work well.

 

[tigres]

Kinda of surprised MR doesn't get units in advance now from . This is about the most loyal following forum that apple has on the planet. Arn, email Cook.

 

[caesarp]

Not many people call each other. I get so annoyed when people leave me an important message on a text rather than just calling. In fact they get more annoyed with me because I didn’t check WhatsApp for a full 30 minutes.

Exactly -- iPhone is a misnomer. It should be called iDevice. It is a pocket/mobile computer -- nothing more, nothing less. It is not a phone (although it has that capability).

 

[johngordon]

Exactly -- iPhone is a misnomer. It should be called iDevice. It is a pocket/mobile computer -- nothing more, nothing less. It is not a phone (although it has that capability).

Exactly - its always a bit odd when people say they wouldn't pay that much money for a phone. Heck, if all they were getting was a phone, I wouldn't blame them.

 

[TrueBlou]

You do realize that the reason you know it’s designed to work 10 to 20 inches from your face is because of Nilay and the Verge’s reporting/review right? They were the source of that quote from Apple after testing the device.

I’m glad they put Face ID through it’s paces. Nilay experienced a few issues so they did in depth testing to see what was causing the issues and wrote about their experiences. They gave Apple a chance to respond to these issues and got them to make a statement on Face ID’s optimal viewing distance. That’s what we want out of a site like Verge. Its proper journalism. They will of course follow up on it all in a proper review once they have had it for more then a day.

I much prefer that to a gushing 24 hour review that says it worked the majority of the time and doesn’t bother to inform the reader about what happened when it didn’t.

Thank you so much for that, I didn’t realise I owed that piece of crucial information to Mr Patel from the Verge. Clearly he’s far more on the ball than I gave him credit for.

I had foolishly thought I gained the information from reading this Apple support document weeks ago, which was published on the 27th of September.

Perhaps if Mr Patel was as thorough in his research on a subject he’s going to publish an opinion on, he’d have known the limitations of the device without having to trouble Apple for the information and could have used it appropriately.

 

[djcerla]

Well that's the thing with faces.. they are all different. Perhaps it doesn't work as well with his face. There have been a lot of discussions that say FaceID is a tiny Kinect on the front of the phone. Anyone remember Kinect being called racist because it couldn't see people with dark skin? We'll find out after its used for a few weeks, but I still expect this not to go as smoothly as Apple is portraying. Hopefully I'm wrong, because that is a lot of money to spend on something if it proves to not work well.

Kinect was not trained with a billion faces, as Apple claims FaceID has been.

It was more fine tuned for body movement.

 

[convergent]

Kinect was not trained with a billion faces, as Apple claims FaceID has been.

It was more fine tuned for body movement.

So Apple had a billion testers? I don't think so.

 

[jon macnrow]

Tripod leg in the shot...

 

[TrueBlou]

Kinect was not trained with a billion faces, as Apple claims FaceID has been.

It was more fine tuned for body movement.

Yes, but they bought Primsense four years ago and started improving the hardware to make it what it is.

They also bought FaceShift two years ago and started incorporating their technology into the facial recognition aspect of what is now Face ID.

That’s why I never believed the whole, Face ID exists because they can’t do under screen Touch ID. I mean, really, one of the biggest richest companies on the planet couldn’t figure that out? The technology already exists for gods sake.

Apple have been working on the Face ID technology for at least four years, this was always going to happen eventually.

 

[djcerla]

So Apple had a billion testers? I don't think so.

That's what Apple claims, no idea know how it's done technically.

 

[jon macnrow]

Arriving Nov. 3 for me.

 

[TimWillz]

Had a notification that mine is currently in the local carrier shop and will be ready for collection when doors open tomorrow. Excited to get my hands on it.

 

[TrueBlou]

So Apple had a billion testers? I don't think so.

You’re right, they didn’t. And they never claimed they did. What they said was they gathered a billion images.

They also took images from many different angles and distances. So no, they didn’t need a billion different faces to do that. How many they did use is anyone’s guess, it’s not been made public.